Earthborn

TWO - TRUE DREAMS

Mon climbed to the roof of the king's house to watch the setting of the dry sun, as it tunneled down between the mountains at the northern end of the valley. Bego, the royal librarian, told him once that when the humans first arrived on Earth, they believed that the sun set in the west and rose in the east. "This is because they came from a place with few mountains," said Bego. "So they couldn't tell north from west."

"Or up from down?" Aronha had asked snidely. "Were humans completely stupid before they had angels to teach them?"

Well, that was Aronha, always resentful of Bego's great learning. Why shouldn't Bego be proud of being a skyman, of the wisdom the sky people had accumulated? All through their hours at school, Aronha was always pointing out that the humans had brought this or that bit of wisdom to the sky people. Why, to hear Aronha go on about it, you'd think the sky people would still be sleeping upside down in the trees if it weren't for the humans!

As for Mon, he never ceased envying the wings of the sky people. Even old Bego, who was so stout he could hardly glide down from an upper story to the ground-Mon yearned for even those old leathery wings. His greatest disappointment of childhood was when he learned that humans never grew up to be angels, that if wings weren't there, furry and useless, pressed against your body when you were born, they would never grow later. You would be cursed forever with naked useless arms.

At nine years old, all Mon could do was climb to the roof at sunset and watch the young sky people-the ones his own age or even younger, but so much more free-as they frolicked over the trees by the river, over the fields, over the roofs of the houses, soaring, dipping, rising, madly tussling in the air and dropping like stones until perilously near the earth, then spreading their wings and swooping out of the fall, hurtling down the streets between the houses like arrows as earthbound humans raised their fists and hollered about young hooligans being a menace to hardworking people just minding their own business. Oh, that I were an angel! cried Mon within his heart. Oh, that I could fly and look down on trees and mountains, rivers and fields! Oh, that I could spy out my father's enemies from far away and fly to him to give warning!

But he would never fly. He would only sit on the roof and brood while others danced in the air.

"You know, it could be worse."

He turned and grimaced at his sister. Edhadeya was the only one he had ever told about his yearning for wings. To her credit, she had never told anyone else; but when they were alone together, she teased him mercilessly.

"There are those who envy you, Mon. The king's son, tall and strong, a mighty warrior is what they say you'll be."

"Nobody knows from the height of the boy how tall the man will be," said Mon. "And I'm the king's second son. Anybody who envies me is a fool."

"It could be worse," said Edhadeya.

"So you said."

"You could be the king's daughter." There was a note of wistfulness in Edhadeya's voice.

"Oh, well, if you have to be a girl at all, you might as well be the daughter of the queen," said Mon.

"Our mother is dead, you might remember. The queen today is Dudagu poopwad, and don't you dare forget it for a moment." The childish term poopwad was translated as the much harsher dermo in the ancient language of the kings, so that the children got a great deal of pleasure from calling their stepmother Dudagu Dermo.

"Oh, that doesn't mean anything," said Mon, "except that poor little Khimin is hopelessly ugly compared to all the rest of Father's children." The five-year-old was Dudagu's eldest and, so far, only child, and though she was constantly wangling to have him named Ha-Khimin in place of Ha-Aron, there was no chance that either Father or the people would stand for replacing Aronha. Mon's and Edhadeya's older brother was twelve years old and already had enough of his manheight for people to see he would be a mighty soldier in battle. And he was a natural leader, everyone saw it. Even now, if there was a call to war there was no doubt that Father would put a company of soldiers under Aronha's command, and those soldiers would proudly serve under the boy who would be king. Mon saw the way others looked at his brother, heard how they spoke of him, and he burned inside. Why did Father continue having sons after Mother gave him the perfect one first?

The problem was that it was impossible to hate Aronha. The very qualities that made him such a good leader at age twelve also made his brothers and sister love him, too. He never bullied. He rarely teased. He always helped and encouraged them. He was patient with Mon's moodiness and Edhadeya's temper and Ominer's snottiness. He was even kind to Khimin, even though he had to be aware of Dudagu's schemes to put her son in Aronha's place. The result, of course, was that Khimin worshipped Aronha. Edhadeya speculated once that perhaps that was Aronha's plan-to make all his siblings love him desperately so they wouldn't be plotting against him. "Then the moment he succeeds to the throne-snip, snap, our throats are cut or our necks are broken."

Edhadeya only said that because she had been reading family history. It wasn't always nice. In fact, the first nice king in many generations had been Father's grandfather, the first Motiak, the one who left the land of Nafai to join with the people of Darakemba. The earlier ones were all bloody-handed tyrants. But maybe that was how it had to be back then, when the Nafai lived in constant warfare. For their survival they couldn't afford to let there be any disputed successions, any civil wars. So new kings more than once put their siblings to death, along with nieces and nephews and, once, one of them killed his own mother because... well, it was impossible to guess why those ancient people did all those terrible things. But old Bego loved telling those stories, and he always ended them with some reference to the fact that the sky people never did such things when they ruled themselves. "The coming of humans was the beginning of evil among the sky people," he said once.

To which Aronha had replied, "Ah, so you called the earth people devils as a little jest? Teasing them, I suppose?"

Bego, as always, took Aronha's impertinence calmly. "We didn't let the earth people dwell among us, and set them up as our kings. So their evil could never infect us. It remained outside us, because sky people and devils never dwelt together."

If we had never dwelt together, thought Mon, perhaps I wouldn't spend my days wishing I could fly. Perhaps I would be content to walk along the surface of the earth like a lizard or a snake.

"Don't get so serious about it," said Edhadeya. "Aronha won't cut anybody's throat."

"I know," said Mon. "I know you were just teasing."

Edhadeya sat beside him. "Mon, do you believe those old stories about our ancestors? About Nafai and Luet? How they could talk to the Oversoul? How Hushidh could look at people and see how they connected together?"

Mon shrugged. "Maybe it's true."

"Issib and his flying chair, and how he could sometimes fly, too, as long as he was in the land of Pristan."

"I wish it were true."

"And the magic ball, that you could hold in your hands and ask it questions and it would answer you."

Edhadeya was clearly caught up in her own reverie. Mon didn't look at her, just watched the last of the sun disappear above the distant river. The sparkling of the river also ended when the sun was gone.

"Mon, do you think Father has that ball? The Index?"

"I don't know," said Mon.

"Do you think when Aronha turns thirteen and he gets brought into the secrets, Father will show him the Index? And maybe Issib's chair?"

"Where would he hide something like that?"

Edhadeya shook her head. "I don't know. I'm just wondering why, if they had those wonderful things, we don't have them, anymore."

"Maybe we do."

"Do you think?" Edhadeya suddenly grew animated. "Mon, do you think that sometimes dreams are true? Because I keep dreaming the same dream. Every night, sometimes twice a night, three times. It feels so real, not like my other dreams. But I'm not a priest or anything. They don't talk to women anyway. If Mother were alive I could ask her, but I'm not going to Dudagu Dermo."

"I know less than anybody," said Mon.

"I know," said Edhadeya.

"Thanks."

"You know less, so you listen more."

Mon blushed.

"Can I tell you my dream?"

He nodded.

"I saw a little boy. Ominer's age. And he had a sister the same age as Khimin."

"You find out people's ages in your dreams?" asked Mon.

"Hush, woodenhead. They were working in the fields. And they were being beaten. Their parents and all the other people. Starved and beaten. They were so hungry. And the people who were whipping them were diggers. Earth people, I mean."

Mon thought about this. "Father would never let diggers rule over us."

"But it wasn't us, don't you see? They were so real. I saw the boy getting beaten once. But not by diggers, it was by human boys who ruled over the diggers."

"Elemaki," murmured Mon. The evil humans who had joined with the diggers and lived in their dank caves and ate the sky people they kidnapped and murdered.

"The boys were bigger than him. He was hungry and so they tormented him by shoving more food than he could swallow into his mouth until he choked and gagged, and then they rubbed fruit and crumbs all over him and rolled him in the mud and grass so nobody could eat it. It was horrible, and he was so brave and never cried out against them, he just took it with such dignity and I cried for him."

"In the dream?"

"No, when I woke up. I wake up crying. I wake up saying, ‘We've got to help them. We've got to find them and bring them home.' "

"We?"

"Father, I suppose. Us. The Nafari. Because I think those pedple are Nafari."

"So why don't they send sky people to find us and ask us for help? That's what people do, when the Elemaki are attacking them."

Edhadeya thought about this. "You know something, Mon? There wasn't a single angel among them."

Mon turned to her then. "No sky people at all?"

"Maybe the diggers killed them all."

"Don't you remember?" he asked. "The people who left back in the days of Father's grandfather? The ones who hated Darakemba and wanted to go back and possess the land of Nafai again?"

"Zef... ."

"Zenif," said Mon. "They said it was wrong for humans and sky people to live together. They didn't take a single angel with them. It's them. They're the ones you dreamed of."

"But they were all killed."

"We don't know that. We just know that we never heard from them again." Mon nodded. "They must still be alive."

"So you think it's a real dream?" asked Edhadeya. "Like the ones Luet had?"

Mon shrugged. Something bothered him. "Your dream," he said. "I don't think it's exactly about the Zenifi. I mean ... it just doesn't feel complete. I think it's someone else."

"Well, how can you know that?" she said. "You're the one who thought it was the Zenifi."

"And it felt right when I said it. But now... now there's just something wrong with it. But you've got to tell Father."

"You tell him," she said. "You'll see him at dinner."

"And you when he comes to say goodnight."

Edhadeya grimaced. "Dudagu Dermo is always there. I never see Father alone."

Mon blushed. "That isn't right of Father."

"Yes, well, you're the one who always knows what's right." She punched him in the arm.

"I'll tell him your dream at dinner."

"Tell him it was your dream."

Mon shook his head. "I don't lie."

"He won't listen if he thinks it's a woman's dream. All the other men at dinner will laugh."

"I won't tell him whose dream it is until I'm done. How's that?"

"Tell him this, too. In the last few dreams, the boy and his sister and his mother and father, they lie there in silence looking at me, saying nothing, just lie there in the darkness and without their saying a word I know they're pleading with me to come and save them."

"You?"

"Well, me in the dream. I don't think that the real people - if there are any real people - would be sitting there hoping for a ten-year-old girl to come and deliver them."

"I wonder if Father will let Aronha go."

"Do you think he'll really send somebody?"

Mon shrugged. "It's dark. It's time for dinner soon. Listen."

From the trees near the river, from the high, narrow houses of the sky people, the evening song arose, a few voices at first, then joined by more and more. Their high, lilting melodies intertwined, played with each other, madly inventing, challenging, resolving dissonance and then subverting expected harmonies, a haunting sound that recalled an earlier time when life for the sky people was a short span of years that had to be enjoyed in the moment, for death was always near. The children stopped their playing and began drifting downward from the sky, going home to supper, to their singing mothers and fathers, to homes filled with music as once the thatched shelters of the angels had filled with song in the high reaches of the trees.

Tears came unbidden to Mon's eyes. This was why he spent the moment of evening song alone, for he would be teased about the tears if others saw them. Not Edhadeya, though.

Edhadeya kissed Mon's cheek. "Thank you for believing me, Mon. Sometimes I think I might as well be a stump, for all that anybody listens to me."

Mon blushed again. When he turned around, she was already going down the ladder to the ground. He should go with her, of course, but now the human voices were beginning to join in the song, and so he could not go. From the windows of the great houses, the human servants and, in the streets, the fieldworkers and the great men of the city sang, each voice with as much right to be heard in the evening song as any other. In some cities, human kings decreed that their human subjects must sing a certain song, usually with words that spoke of patriotism or dutiful worship of the king or the official gods. But in Darakemba the old ways of the Nafari were kept, and the humans made up their own melodies as freely as the angels did. The voices of the middle people were lower, slower, less deft in making rapid changes. But they did their best, and the sky people accepted their song and played with it, danced around it, decorated and subverted and fulfilled it, so that middle people and sky people together were a choir in a continuous astonishing cantata with ten thousand composers and no soloists.

Mon raised his own voice, high and sweet-so high that he did not have to sing among the low human voices, he could take a place in the bottom reaches of the sky people's song. From the street, a woman of the fields looked up at him and smiled. Mon answered her, not with a smile, but with a rapid run, his best. And when she laughed and nodded and walked on, he felt good. Then he raised his eyes and saw, on the roof of a house two streets over, two young sky people who had perched there for a moment on their way home. They watched him, and Mon defiantly sang louder, though he knew his voice, high and quick as it was, was no match for the singing of the sky people. Still, they heard him, they sang with him for a moment, and then they raised their left wings in salute to him. They must be twins, thought Mon, self and oth-erself, yet they took a moment to open their duet to include me. He raised his own left hand in answer, and they dropped down from the roof into the courtyard of their own house.

Mon got up and, still singing, walked to the ladder. If he were an angel, he wouldn't have to use a ladder to climb down from the roof of the king's house. He could swoop down and come to rest before the door, and when dinner was over he could fly up into the night sky and go hunting by moonlight.

His bare feet slapped against the rungs as he skimmed down the ladder. Keeper of Earth, why did you make me human? He sang as he walked through the courtyard of the king's house, heading for the raucous brotherhood of the king's table, but there was pain and loneliness in his song.

Shedemei woke up in her chamber in the starship Basilica, and saw at once that it wasn't one of her scheduled wakings. The calendar was all wrong, and to confirm it, she heard at once the voice of the Over-soul in her mind. "The Keeper is sending dreams again."

She felt a thrill of excitement run through her. For all these centuries, dipping into and out of life, kept young by the cloak of the starmaster but long since old and weary in her heart, she had waited to see what the Keeper's next move would be. She brought us here, thought Shedemei, brought us here and kept us alive and sent us dreams, and then suddenly she fell silent and we were left to our own devices for so long.

"It was an old man first, among the Zenifi," said the Oversoul. Shedemei padded naked along the corridors of the ship and then up the central shaft to the library. "They murdered him. But a priest named Akmaro believed him. I think he also had some dreams, but I'm not sure. With the old man dead and the ex-priest living in slavery, I wouldn't have woken you. But then the daughter of Motiak dreamed. Like Luet. I haven't seen a dreamer like this since Luet."

"What's her name? She was just a newborn when I... ."

"Edhadeya. The women call her Deya. They know she's something but the men don't listen, of course."

"I really don't like the way things have developed between men and women among the Nafari, you know. My great-great-granddaughters shouldn't have to put up with such nonsense."

"I've seen worse," said the Oversoul.

"I have no doubt of that. But, forgive me for asking: So what?"

"It will change," the Oversoul said. "It always does."

"How old is she now? Deya?"

"Ten."

"I sleep ten years and I still don't feel rested." She sat down at one of the library computers. "All right, show me what I need to see."

The Oversoul showed her Edhadeya's dream and told her about Mon and his truthsense.

"Well," said Shedemei, "the powers of the parents are undimin-ished in the children."

"Shedemei, does any of this make sense to you?"

Shedemei almost laughed aloud. "Do you hear yourself, my friend? You are the program that posed as a god back on the planet Harmony.

You planned your plans, you plotted your plots, and you never asked humans for advice. Instead you roped us in and dragged us to Earth transformed our lives forever and now you ask me if any of this makes sense? What happened to the master plan?"

"My plan was simple," said the Oversoul. "Get back to Earth and ask the Keeper what I should do about the weakening power of the Oversoul of Harmony. I fulfilled that plan as far as I could. Here I am."

"And here I am."

"Don't you see, Shedemei? Your being here wasn't my plan. I needed human help to assemble one workable starship, but I didn't need to take any humans with me. I brought you because the Keeper of Earth was somehow sending you dreams-and sending them faster than light, I might add. The Keeper seemed to want you humans here. So I brought you. And I came, expecting to find technological marvels waiting for me. Machines that could repair me, replenish me, send me back to Harmony able to restore the power of the Oversoul. Instead I wait here, I've waited nearly five hundred years-"

"As have I," added Shedemei.

"You've slept through most of them," said the Oversoul. "And you don't have responsibility for a planet a hundred lightyears distant where technology is beginning to blossom and devastating wars are only a few generations away. I don't have time for this. Except that if the Keeper thinks I have time for it, I probably do. Why doesn't the Keeper talk to me? When no one was hearing anything for all these years, I could be patient. But now humans are dreaming again, the Keeper is on the move again, and yet still it says nothing to me."

"And you ask me?" said Shedemei. "You're the one who should have memories dating back to the time when you were created. The Keeper sent you, right? Where was it then? What was it then?"

"I don't know." If a computer could shrug, Shedemei imagined the Oversoul would do it now. "Do you think I haven't searched my memory? Before your husband died, he helped me search, and we found nothing. I remember the Keeper always being present, I remember knowing that certain vital instructions had been programmed into me by the Keeper-but as to who or what the Keeper is or was or even might have been, I know as little as you."

"Fascinating," said Shedemei. "Let's see if we can think of a way to get the Keeper to talk to you. Or at least to show her hand."

Mon was seated, as usual, down at the stewards' end of the table. His father told him that the king's second son was placed there in order to show respect for the record-keepers and message-bearers and treasurers and provisioners, for, as Father said, "If it weren't for them, there'd be no kingdom for the soldiers to protect."

When Father said that, Mon had answered, in his most neutral voice, "But if you really want to show your respect for them, you'd place Ha-Aron among them."

To which Father mildly replied, "If it weren't for the army, all the stewards would be dead."

So Mon, the second son, was all that the second rank of leaders in the kingdom merited; the first son was the honor of the first rank, the military men, the people who really mattered.

And that was how the business of dinner was conducted, too. The King's Supper had begun many generations ago as a council of war- that was when women began to be excluded. In those days it was only once a week that the council ate together, but for generations now it had been every night, and human men of wealth and standing imitated the king in their own homes, dining separately from their wives and daughters. It wasn't that way among the sky people, though. Even those who shared the king's table went home and sat with their wives and children for another meal.

Which was why, sitting at Mon's left hand, the chief clerk, the old angel named bGo, was barely picking at his food. It was well known that bGo's wife became quite miffed if he showed no appetite at her table, and Father had always refused to be offended that bGo apparently feared his wife more than he feared the king. bGo was senior among the clerks, though as head of the census he was certainly not as powerful as the treasuremaster and the provisioner. He was also a surly conversationalist and Mon hated having to sit with him.

Beyond bGo, though, his otherself, Bego, was far more talkative- and had a much sturdier appetite, mostly because he had never married. Bego, the recordkeeper, was only a minute and a half less senior than bGo, but one would hardly imagine they were the same age, Bego had so much energy, so much vigor, so much ... so much anger, Mon thought sometimes. Mon loved school whenever Bego was their tutor, but he sometimes wondered if Father really knew how much rage seethed under the surface of his recordkeeper. Not disloyalty-Mon would report that at once. Just a sort of general anger at life. Aronha said it was because he had never once mated with a female in his life, but then Aronha had sex on the brain these days and thought that lust explained everything-which, in the case of Aronha and all his friends, was no doubt true. Mon didn't know why Bego was so angry. He just knew that it put a delicious skeptical edge on all of Bego's lessons. And even on his eating. A sort of savagery in the way he lifted the panbread rolled up with bean paste to his lips and bit down on it. The way he ground the food in his jaws when he chewed, slowly, methodically, glaring out at the rest of the court.

On Mon's right, the treasuremaster and the provisioner were caught up in their own business conversation-quietly, of course, so as not to distract from the real meeting going on at the king's end of the table, where the soldiers were regaling each other with anecdotes from recent raids and skirmishes. Being adult humans, the treasuremaster and provisioner were much taller than Mon and generally ignored him after the initial courtesies. Mon was more the height of the sky people to his left, and besides, he knew Bego better, and so when he talked at all, it was to them.

"I have something I want to tell Father," said Mon to Bego.

Bego chewed twice more and swallowed, fixing Mon with his weary gaze all the while. "Then tell him," he said.

"Exactly," murmured bGo.

"It's a dream," said Mon.

"Then tell your mother," said Bego. "Middle women still pay attention to such things."

"Right," murmured bGo.

"But it's a true dream," said Mon. bGo sat up straight. "And how would you know that."

Mon shrugged. "I know it." bGo turned to Bego, who turned to him. They gazed at each other, as if some silent communication were passing between them. Then Bego turned back to Mon. "Be careful about making claims like that."

"I am," said Mon. "Only when I'm sure. Only when it matters."

That was something Bego had taught them in school, about making judgments. "Whenever you can get away with making no decision at all, then that's what you should do. Make decisions only when you're sure, and only when it matters." Bego nodded now, to hear Mon repeat his precept back to him.

"If he believes me, then it's a matter for the war council," said Mon.

Bego studied him. bGo did, too, for a moment, but then rolled his eyes and slumped back in his chair. "I feel an embarrassing scene coming on," he murmured.

"Embarrassing only if the prince is a fool," said Bego. "Are you?"

"No," said Mon. "Not about this, anyway." Even as he said it, though, Mon wondered if in fact he was a fool. After all, it was Ed-hadeya's dream, not his own. And there was something about his interpretation of it that made him uneasy. Yet one thing was certain: It was a true dream, and it meant that somewhere humans-Nafari humans-lived in painful bondage under the whips of Elemaki diggers.

Bego waited for another moment, as if to be sure that Mon wasn't going to back down. Then he raised his left wing. "Father Motiak," he said loudly.

His abrasive voice cut through the noisy conversation at the military end of the table. Monush, for many years the mightiest warrior in the kingdom, the man for whom Mon had been named, was interrupted in the middle of a story. Mon winced. Couldn't Bego have waited for a natural lull in the conversation?

Father's normally benign expression did not change. "Bego, the memory of my people, what do you have to say during the war council?" His words held a bit of menace, but his voice was calm and kind, as always.

"While the soldiers are still at table," said Bego, "one of the worthies of your kingdom has information that, if you choose to heed it, will be a matter for a council of war."

"And who is this worthy? What is his information?" asked Father.

"He sits beside my otherself," said Bego, "and he can give you his information for himself."

All eyes turned to Mon, and for a moment he wanted to turn and flee from the room. Had Edhadeya realized how awful this moment would be, when she asked him to do this? But Mon knew he could not shrink from this now-to back down would humiliate Bego and shame himself. Even if his message was disbelieved, he had to give it-and boldly, too.

Mon rose to his feet, and, as he had seen his father do before speaking, he looked each of the leading men of the kingdom in the eyes. In their faces he saw surprise, amusement, deliberate patience. Last of all he looked at Aronha, and to his relief, he saw that Aronha looked serious and interested, not teasing or embarrassed. Aronha, thank you for giving me respect.

"My information comes from a true dream," Mon said at last.

There was a murmur around the table. Who had dared to claim a true dream in many generations? And at the king's table?

"How do you know it's a true dream?" asked Father.

It was something Mon had never been able to explain to anyone or even to himself. He didn't try now. "It's a true dream," he said.

Again there was a whisper around the table, and while some of the impatient faces changed to amusement, some that had been amused now looked serious.

"At least they're paying attention," murmured bGo.

Father spoke again, a hint of consternation in his voice. "Tell us the dream, then, and why it's a matter for the council of war."

"The same dream over and over for many nights," said Mon. He was careful to give no hint of who the dreamer was. He knew they would assume that it was him, but no one would be able to call him a liar. "A little boy and his sister, the ages of Ominer and Khimin. They were working in the fields, as slaves, faint with hunger, and the taskmasters who whipped them at their work were earth people."

He had their attention now, all of them. Diggers with humans as slaves-it made all of them angry, though they all knew that it must happen from time to time.

"One time in the dream the boy was beaten by human boys. Humans who ruled over the diggers. The boy was brave and never cried out as they... humiliated him. He was worthy."

The soldiers all nodded. They understood what he was saying.

"At night the boy and his sister and his father and mother lay in silence. I think ... I think they were forbidden to speak aloud. But they asked for help. They asked for someone to come and deliver them from bondage."

Mon paused for a moment, and into the silence came Monush's voice. "I have no doubt that this dream is true enough, because we know that many humans and angels are kept as slaves among the Elemaki. But what can we do? It takes all our strength to keep our own people free."

"But Monush," said Mon, "these are our people."

Now the whispers were filled with excitement and outrage.

"Let me hear my son speak," said Father. The whispers ceased.

Mon blushed. Father had admitted him to be his son, yes, that was good; but he had not used the formal locution, "Let me hear my counselor," which would have meant that he absolutely accepted what Mon was saying. He was still on trial here. Thanks Edhadeya. This could shame me for my whole life, if it goes badly. I would always be known as the second son who spoke foolishness out of turn in a war council.

"They have no sky people among them," said Mon. "Who has ever heard of such a kingdom? They are the Zenifi, and they call to us for help."

Husu, the angel who served the king as his chief spy, leading hundreds of strong, brave skypeople who kept constant watch on the borders of the kingdom, raised his right wing, and Mon nodded to give him the king's ear. He had seen this done before at council, but since he had never had the king's ear himself, this was the first time he had ever been able to take part in the niceties of formal discussion.

"Even if the dream is true and the Zenifi are calling out to us in dreams," said Husu, "what claim do they have upon us? They rejected the decision of the first King Motiak and refused to live in a place where sky people outnumbered middle people five to one. They left Darakemba of their own free will, to return to the land of Nafai. We thought they must have been destroyed. If we learn now that they are alive, we're glad, but it means nothing more than that to us. If we learn now that they're in bondage, we're sad, but again, it means nothing more than that."

When his speech was finished, Mon looked to the king for permission to speak again.

"How do you know they're the Zenifi?" asked Father.

Again, Mon could say nothing more than to repeat what he knew was true. Only this was exactly the point that he wasn't sure of. They were the Zenifi, but they were not the Zenifi. Or something. Something else. They used to be Zenifi, was that it? Or are they simply a pan of the Zenifi?

"They are Zenifi," said Mon, and as he said it he knew that it was right, or right enough. They may not be the Zenifi, the whole people; but they are Zenifi, even if somewhere else there might be others.

But Mon's answer gave Father little to go on. "A dream?" he said. "The first king of the Nafari had true dreams."

"As did his wife," said Bego.

"The great queen Luet," said Father, nodding. "Bego is wise to remind us of history. Both were true dreamers. And there were other true dreamers among them. And among the sky people, and among the earth people too, in those days. But that was the age of heroes."

Mon wanted to insist: It is a true dream. But he had seen at council before how Father resisted when men tried to press their case by saying the same thing again and again. If they had new evidence, fine, let them speak and Father would hear; but if they were merely insisting on the same old story, Father merely believed them less and less the more they pushed. So Mon held his tongue and merely continued to look his father in the eye, unabashed.

He heard bGo's soft murmur as he spoke to his otherself: "I know what the gossips will be chatting about for the next week."

"The boy has courage," Bego answered softly.

"So do you," said bGo.

In the silence, Aronha stood from the table, but instead of asking Mon for the king's ear, he walked around behind the chairs to stand behind his father. It was a privilege that only the king's heir had, to speak to the king privately in front of his other counselors without giving offense-for it was not presumption for the heir to display a special privacy with the king.

Father listened to Aronha, then nodded. "This can be said aloud," he said, granting permission.

Aronha returned to his seat. "I know my brother," he said. "He does not lie."

"Of course not," said Monush, and Husu echoed him.

"More than that," said Aronha. "Mon never claims to know what he doesn't know. When he's unsure, he says so. And when he's sure, he's always right."

Mon felt a thrill run through him, to hear such words from his brother's mouth. Aronha wasn't just standing up for him-he was asserting something so outrageous that Mon was frightened for him. How could he make such a claim?

"Bego and I have noticed it," said Aronha. "Why else do you suppose Bego risked his own place at the king's table in order to introduce Mon's words? I don't think Mon realizes it himself. Most of the time he is uncertain of himself. He can be persuaded easily; he never argues. But when he truly knows a thing, he never backs down, never, no matter how much we argue. And when he digs in his heels like that, Bego and I both know well, he's never been wrong. Not once. I would stake my honor and the lives of good men on the truth of what he says today. Even though I think the dream was not his own, if he says it's a true dream and the people are the Zenifi, then I know that it's the truth as surely as if I saw old Zenif with my own eyes."

"Why do you think the dream is not his own?" asked Father, suddenly wary.

"Because he never said it was," said Aronha. "If it was, he would have said it. He didn't, so it wasn't."

"Whose dream was it?" demanded the king.

"The daughter of Toeledwa," said Mon immediately.

There was an immediate uproar at the table, partly because Mon had dared to mention the name of the dead queen at a celebratory occasion, but mostly because he had brought the counsel of a woman to the king's table.

"We would not have heard that voice here!" cried one of the old captains.

Father raised his hands and everyone fell silent. "You're right, we would not have heard that voice here. But my son believes that the message of that voice needed to be heard, and so he dared to bring it; and Ha-Aron has declared his belief in it. So now the only question before this council is: What shall we do, now that we know the Zenifi are calling to us for help?"

The discussion immediately passed beyond any realm where Mon would be consulted, and he sat down, listening. He scarcely trusted himself to look at anyone, for fear he would break discipline and show a smile of such relief, such gratification that everyone would know that he was still only a child, the second son.

Husu opposed sending any sky people to, risk their lives rescuing the Zenifi; in vain did Monush argue that the first generation, the one that had rejected all human association with angels, was surely dead by now. As they discussed the issue, with other counselors chiming in with their own points, Mon risked a glance at his brother. To his chagrin, Aronha was looking right at him, grinning. Mon ducked his head to hide his own grin, but he was happier at this moment than he had ever been before in his life.

He turned then, to glance at Bego, but it was bGo who whispered to him. "What if a hundred die, for this dream of Edhadeya's?"

The words struck Mon through the heart. He hadn't thought of that. To send an army so far into Elemaki territory, up the endless narrow canyons where ambush was possible anywhere-it was dangerous, it was foolhardy, yet the war council was arguing, not about whether to risk it, but whom to take on the raid.

"Don't ruin the boy's triumph," murmured Bego. "Nobody's making the soldiers go. He told the truth and he did it boldly. Honor to him." Bego raised his glass of mulled wine.

Mon knew to raise his own glass of twice-cut wine. "It was your voice opened the door, Ro-Bego."

Bego sipped his wine, frowning. "None of your middlebeing titles for me, boy." bGo grinned-a rare expression for him-and said, "My otherself is beside himself with pleasure; you must excuse him, it always makes him surly."

Father proposed the compromise. "Let Husu's spies guard Mon-ush's human soldiers until they find a way past the outposts of the Elemaki. From what we understand, there's chaos among the kingdoms in the land of Nafai these days, and it may be far safer than usual to get in. Then, when Monush passes within the guarded borders, the spies hold back and wait for them to emerge again."

"How long?" asked Husu.

"Eighty days," said Monush.

"It's the wet season in high country," said Husu. "Are we to freeze or starve? What is the plan?"

"Keep five men there for ten days," said the king. "Then another five, and another, for ten days each."

Monush raised his left hand in agreement. Husu raised his left wing, but muttered nonetheless, "To bring back worthless bigots, yes, I'm sure that's worth the trouble."

Mon was surprised that Husu was allowed to speak so boldly.

"I understand the anger the sky people feel toward the Zenifi," said Father. "That's why I take no offense at the mockery in your acceptance of my proposal."

Husu bowed his head. "My king is kinder than his servant deserves."

"That's the truth," muttered bGo. "Someday Husu will go too far and the rest of us will pay for it."

The rest of "us"? He must mean the sky people as a whole, thought Mon. It was a disturbing thought, that somehow the sky people would all be held responsible for Husu's audacity. "That wouldn't be fair," said Mon. bGo chuckled softly. "Listen to him, Bego. He says it isn't fair- as if that means it couldn't happen."

"In the secret heart of every human man," whispered Bego, "the sky people are nothing more than impertinent beasts."

"That's not true," said Mon. "You're wrong!"

Bego looked at him, bemused.

"I'm a human, aren't I?" demanded Mon. "And in my heart the angels are the most beautiful and glorious people."

Mon had not been shouting, but the intensity in his voice had stilled all other voices. In the sudden silence, he realized that everyone had heard him. He looked at his Father's surprised expression and blushed.

"It seems to me," said Father, "that some of the council have forgotten that only those with the king's ear can speak here."

Mon rose to his feet, hot with shame. "Forgive me, sir."

Father smiled. "I believe it was Aronha who said that when you dug in your heels, you were always right." He turned to Aronha. "Do you stand by that?"

A bit uncertain, Aronha looked his father in the eye and said, "Yes, sir."

"Then I believe it is the opinion of this council that the angels are indeed the most beautiful and glorious people." And Father raised his glass to Husu.

Husu stood, bowed, and lifted his glass in response. Both drank.

Then Father looked at Monush, who laughed, stood, and lifted his glass to drink as well.

"The words of my second son have brought peace to this table," said Father. "That is always wisdom, to these ears, at least. Come, have done. The council is over and there is nothing more for us here except to eat-and ponder how the dreams of young girls, brought by young boys, have set in motion the feet and wings of warriors."

Edhadeya waited for her father to come to her small room to talk with her as he did every night. Usually she was happy that he was coming, eager to tell him how she did in school, to show off a new word or phrase in the ancient language, to tell him of some adventure or gossip or achievement of the day. Tonight, though, she was afraid, and she wasn't sure which she feared more-that Mon had told Father of her dream, or that he hadn't. If he hadn't, then she would have to tell him now herself, and then he might pat her shoulder and tell her that the dream was strange and wonderful and then he would just ignore it, not realizing that it was a true dream.

When he came to her doorway, though, Edhadeya knew that Mon had told him. His eyes were sharp and searching. He stood in silence, his arms bracing the doorframe. Finally he nodded. "So the spirit of Luet is awake in my daughter."

She looked down at the floor, unsure whether he was angry or proud.

"And the spirit of Nafai in my second son."

Ah. So he wasn't angry.

"Don't bother explaining why you couldn't tell me this yourself," said Father. "I know why, and I'm ashamed. Luet never had to use subterfuge to get her husband's ear, nor did Chveya have to get her brother or her husband to speak for her when she had wisdom that others needed to know."

In one motion he knelt before her and took her hands in his. "I looked around the king's council tonight, as we finished our meal, thoughts of danger and war in our minds, of the Zenifi in bondage and needing to be saved, and all I could think of was-why have we forgotten what our first ancestors knew? That the Keeper of Earth cares not whether he speaks to a woman or a man?"

"What if it's not so?" she whispered.

"What, you doubt it now?" asked Father.

"I dreamed the dream, and it was true-but it was Mon who said it was the Zenifi. I didn't understand it at all till he said that."

"Keep talking to Mon when you have true dreams," said Father. "I know this: When Mon spoke, I felt a fire kindle in my heart and I thought-the words came into my mind as clearly as if someone had spoken them in my ear-I thought, A mighty man stands here in boyshape. And then I learned the dream was yours, and again the voice came into my mind: The man who listens to Edhadeya will be the true steward of the Keeper of Earth."

"Was it-the Keeper who spoke to you?" asked Edhadeya.

"Who knows?" said Father. "Maybe it was fatherly pride. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Maybe it was the voice of the Keeper. Maybe it was the second glass of wine." He laughed. "I miss your mother," he said. "She would know better than I what to make of you."

"I'm doing my best with her," said Dudagu from the door.

Edhadeya gasped in surprise. Dudagu had a way of moving around silently so that no one knew where she might be eavesdropping.

Father rose to his feet. "But I have never charged you with my daughter's education," said Father gently. "So what in the world would you be doing your best at?" He grinned at Dudagu and then strode out of Edhadeya's room.

Dudagu glared at Edhadeya. "Don't think this dream business can get you anywhere, little girl," she said. Then she smiled. "What you say to him in here, I can always unsay to him on his pillow."

Edhadeya smiled her prettiest smile back at her stepmother. Then she opened her mouth and jammed her finger down her throat as if to make herself throw up. A moment later she was smiling prettily again.

Dudagu shrugged. "Four more years till I can have you married off," she said. "Believe me, I already have my women looking for someone suitable. Someone far away from here."

She glided silently away from the door and down the hall. Edhadeya threw herself back on her bed and murmured, "I would dearly love to have a true dream of Dudagu Dermo in a boating accident. If you arrange those things, dear Keeper of Earth, keep in mind that she doesn't swim, but she's very tall, so the water must be deep."

The next day all the talk was of the expedition to find the Zenifi. And the morning after that, the lofty people and the officials of the city turned out to see the soldiers march away, the spies flying their daredevil maneuvers in the sky above them. Edhadeya thought, as she watched them go, So this is what a dream can do. And then she thought, I should have more such dreams.

At once she was ashamed of herself. If I ever lie about about my dreams and claim a true one when it isn't so, then may the Keeper take all my dreams away from me.

Sixteen human soldiers, with a dozen spies shadowing them from the air, set out from Darakemba. It was not an army, was not even large enough to be a serious raiding party, and so their departure caused only a momentary stir in the city. Mon watched, though, with Aronha and Edhadeya standing beside him on the roof.

"They should have let me go with them," said Aronha angrily.

"Are you that generous, that you want the kingdom to come to me?" asked Mon.

"Nobody's going to be killed," said Aronha.

Mon didn't bother to answer. He was perfectly aware that Aronha knew Father was right-there was a touch of madness to this expedition. It was a search party trying to find the location of a dream. Father took only volunteers, and it was only with great reluctance that he let the great soldier Monush lead them. There was no chance that he would send his heir. "They'd spend all their time worrying about your safety instead of the mission I'm sending them on," Father had said. "Don't worry, Aronha. You'll have your first sight of bloody battle far too soon, I'm sure. If I sent you out this time, though, your mother would rise up from the grave to scold me." Mon had felt a thrill of fear when he heard this, until he saw that everyone else was taking it as a joke.

Everyone but Aronha, of course, who really was furious at not being included. "My sister can have the dream, my brother can tell you the dream-and what is for me? Tell me that, Father!"

"Why, Aronha, I have given you exactly as much involvement as I have given myself-to stand and watch them go."

Well, now they were doing just that, standing and watching them go. Normally Aronha would have seen the soldiers off from the steps of the king's house, but he claimed it would be too humiliating to stand beside the king when he had been declared too useless to go. Father didn't argue with him, just let him go to the roof, and now here he stood, furious even though he had already admitted to Mon that if he were in Father's place he'd make the same decision. "Just because Father's right doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."

Edhadeya laughed. "By the Cottonmouth, Aronha, that's when Father makes us the maddest!"

"Don't swear by the Legless One," said Aronha sharply.

"Father says it's just a dangerous snake and not a real god so why not?" said Edhadeya defiantly.

"You're not superstitious now, are you, Aronha?" asked Mon.

"Father says to have respect for the beliefs of others, and you know half the digger servants still hold the Legless One sacred," said Aronha.

"Yes," said Edhadeya, "and they're always swearing by him."

"They don't say his name outright," said Aronha.

"But Aronha, it's just a snake." Edhadeya wagged her head back and forth like a maize tassel. In spite of himself, Aronha laughed. Then his face got serious again, and he looked back at the sixteen soldiers, jogging out among the fields in single file, heading up the river to the souther border.

"Will they find my dream?" asked Edhadeya.

"If the Keeper sent you the dream," said Aronha, "it must mean he wants the Zenifi found."

"But that doesn't mean that anybody in Monush's party even knows how to hear the Keeper when she speaks," said Edhadeya.

Aronha glared but didn't look at her. "He decides whom he's going to speak to. It's not a matter of knowing how."

"She can only speak to people who know how to listen, which is why our ancestor Luet was so famous as the waterseer, and her sister Hushidh and her niece Chveya as ravelers. They had great power in them, and-"

"The power wasn't in them," said Aronha. "It was in the Keeper. He chose them, his favorites-and I might point out that none of them was greater than Nafai himself, who had the cloak of the star-master and commanded the heavens with his-"

"Bego says it's all silliness," said Mon.

The others fell silent.

"He does?" said Aronha, after a while.

"You've heard him say so, haven't you?" asked Mon.

"Never to me," said Aronha. "What does he say is silliness? The Keeper?"

"The idea of our heroic ancestors," said Mon. "Everybody claims to have heroic ancestors, he says. By the time enough generations have passed, they become gods. He says that's where gods come from. Gods in human shape, anyway."

"How interesting," said Aronha. "He teaches the king's son that the king's ancestors are made up?"

Only now did Mon realize that he might be causing trouble for his tutor. "No," he said. "Not in so many words. He just... raised the possibility."

Aronha nodded. "So you don't want me to turn him in."

"He didn't say it outright."

"Just remember this, Mon," said Aronha. "Bego might be right, and our stories of great human ancestors with extraordinary powers granted by the Keeper of Earth, those stories might all be exaggerated or even outright fantasies or whatever. But we middle people aren't the only ones who might want to revise history to fit our present needs. Don't you think a patriotic sky man might want to cast doubt on the stories of greatness among the ancestors of the middle people? Especially the ancestors of the king?"

"Bego's not a liar," said Mon. "He's a scholar."

"I didn't say he was lying," said Aronha. "He says we believe in these tales because it's so useful and satisfying to us. Maybe he doubts the same tales because the doubt is useful and satisfying to him."

Mon frowned. "Then how can we ever know what's true?"

"We can't," said Aronha. "That's what I figured out a long time ago."

"So you don't believe in anything?"

"I believe in everything that seems most true to me right now," said Aronha. "I just refuse to be surprised when some of those things I believe now turn out to be false later. It helps keep me from being upset."

Edhadeya laughed. "And where did you learn that idea?"

Aronha turned to her, mildly offended. "You don't think I could think it up myself?"

"No," she said.

"Monush taught me that," said Aronha. "One day when I asked him if there really was a Keeper of Earth. After all, according to the old stories, there once was a god called the Oversoul, and that turned out to be a machine inside an ancient boat."

"An ancient boat that flew through the air," said Mon. "Bego says that only the sky people fly, and that our ancestors invented that flying boat story because middle people were so jealous of the fact that sky people could fly."

"Some sky people can fly," said Edhadeya. "I'll bet old Bego is so old and fat and creaky he can't even get off the ground anymore."

"But he could when he was young," said Mon. "He can remember."

"And you can imagine," said Aronha.

Mon shook his head. "To remember is real. To imagine is nothing."

Edhadeya laughed. "That's silly, Mon. Most of the things people say they remember they only imagine anyway."

"And where did you learn tknt?" asked Aronha with a smirk.

Edhadeya rolled her eyes. "From Uss-Uss, and you can laugh if you want, but she's-"

"She's a glorified housemaid!" said Aronha.

"She's the only friend I had after Mother died," said Edhadeya firmly, "and she's very wise."

"She's a digger," said Mon softly.

"But not an Elemaku," said Edhadeya. "Her family has served the kings of the Nafari for five generations."

"As slaves," said Mon.

Aronha laughed. "Mon listens to an old angel, Edhadeya to a fat old digger slave woman, and I listen to a soldier who is known for his courage and cleverness in war, and not for his scholarship. We all choose our own teachers, don't we? I wonder if our choice of teacher shows anything about what our lives will be."

They thought about that in silence as they watched the small swarm of spies that marked the location of Monush's party as they continued their journey far up the valley of the Tsidorek.